


Salvation & Terms of Endearment

by Whimzlogo



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Apologies, Brotherly Love, Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort No Hurt, Declarations Of Love, Dog Tags, Fluff, Forgiveness, Gen, Hanging Out, Heart-to-Heart, Hotels, Hugs, Humor, Inspired by a Fastlane commercial I saw during Smackdown to be quite honest, Kayfabe Compliant, Miscommunication, Nicknames, Post-Battle, Pre-Battle, Road Trips, Set in the days following the 3/4/19 RAW, Talking, The Shield talking about Cerberus in a spiritual sense, The trademark fist bump didn't just magically fix everything, Unresolved Tension, Wrestling, and in the days leading up to "One Last Time"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:12:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whimzlogo/pseuds/Whimzlogo
Summary: Monday night was a rush. A dreamlike experience, that was said and done (more done than said) as fast as it started.It kicked off one of the longest weeks of Seth's life, highlighted by notable moments where he was reminded of the kind of person Dean used to be and the kind of person he wasnow. Two considerably different people.One wasn't better than the other, was what he was growing to realize.





	1. Tue

**Author's Note:**

> A lengthier-than-originally-intended fic expanding on The Shield's mended bond and how it came about after Dean decided to reside with his brothers. Word count varies in all six chapters, but chapter 5 is the longest.
> 
> It sounded humorously probable to me that the three of them solved all of their personal issues (or "family problems" as Drew put it) within the week proceeding the PPV, far away from any ring. The difference between RAW and Fastlane was night and day, and I really wanted to write a fic shedding some light on how that may have happened. c':

The first time within the week that Seth realized he actually had to be in close quarters with Dean-- Tuesday, in the afternoon-- a jolt of cold alarm shocked his blood.

It was such a no-brainer that they needed to spend time together before Sunday, but  _doing things_ was an entirely separate game from  _saying_  you were going to do things, and now that they had Roman back with them... Seth didn't feel like anything was fixed.

Nothing that concerned Dean, in his mind, was  _fixed_. It played a large role in ruining things that could have otherwise been pleasant, he was sure.

Seeing his two partners together again, palling around and joking and  _reminiscing_  twenty-something times more than he wanted to, be it at a muffled distance or up close and high def, made him almost certain he was missing something crucial. He just didn't know what that something  _was_ yet.

The key word there was  _yet_ , because he wasn't planning on giving up until he figured it out. Until the nag was gone and he stopped feeling so out of sorts about something that should have been second nature to enjoy the spoils of-- while they still could, like Roman much-more-eloquently put.

But  _until_  he figured it out, all that could be felt was that missing fragment of information, so very  _felt_ because everything that was still holding together inside him and which was already known as fact made up the very essence of who he was. It wasn't surprising it gave him reason to worry; he was missing a whole jigsaw piece.

Worse yet, was this how  _Dean_  felt before he turned his back on them four months ago? Seth knew he wanted nothing to do with that, because when  _he_ did his own traitorous number on The Shield, there was nothing personal about it; he didn't want to know what performing the deed felt like with added spite.

But Dean knew what it felt like, and what he said and did was already said and done. What he was saying and doing  _now_ , though...?

Eh.

"I just think it's  _reasonable_ to wager the old Drew's still in there somewhere. Gotta be." The scrapper breezed past Seth, momentarily cutting him off from walking. He swerved around the curve of the wall and strutted into a mostly-empty hotel lobby, leading with his shoulders. Seth caught a strong whiff of mint from the gum he was chewing.

"'The old Drew'?" repeated Roman, questionably.

Dean snapped around, walking backwards in that chipper, overly-confident way he often did-- except this was a room they had only ever been in a dozen or so times scattered over the course of a few years, and wasn't a backstage hallway in an arena.

"Yeah," he replied, quite simply at first. He positioned his arms and hands just so in front of him to prove to the two of them that he was in possession of an air guitar and made some theatrical picking motions with his fingers. "Rockstar Drew; 3MB Drew; the guy we used to bounce off the turn buckle like a deflated basketball."

That drew a laugh out of Roman. "Yeah, I don't think that's worth remembering anymore." He quickened his pace to keep up with Dean, which turned out not to be for nothing; he roughly grabbed him by half of his unzipped jacket and reeled him in just as the heel of his boot was coming down onto a small step down in the floor, preventing him from falling backwards.

In all actuality, Dean's balance was impeccable (like many in their line of work), and it was pretty unlikely he would have. He still looked back at the step, and to the lounge pit ahead of them in the very center of the lobby, boasting three couches that surrounded an unlit fireplace. He returned his attention to Roman and patted his arm gratefully.

"Not worth remembering?" he asked, suddenly absolutely aghast, as he continued on the conversation like nothing interrupted it. He spun around and stepped down into the pit the proper way. "Clues are there for a reason. I think he was try'na tell us something."

"Nah, man. People change." Seth smiled faintly as he watched their eldest hop down after Dean. He teetered silently on the edge while the talk carried on: "Either naturally or forcibly, they change-- and usually it's for good. No take backs."

Dean tsked as he plopped down on one of the couches, elbows propped up far behind him and head tilted back. "So that means I gotta rework my whole plan. I was gonna smash a brick through Elias' car window and steal one of his guitars, then stash it under the ring before the show started and kick it over to Drew while the match was goin' on, just to see if anything would click."

Seth was halfway over to join them by the couches when  _that_  wordy spiel reached his ears. He stopped in his tracks. Almost instantly Roman looked right at him, seriously blank-faced if not for how comically wide his eyes were.

"I'll have to think of something else," concluded Dean, as Seth edged the rest of the way over to lean against the back of the couch, right beside Roman. Their middle brother jumped soon after when Roman reached down the back and gently tousled his hair from behind-- with less playful intent and more tenderness. Dean reflexively reached up and enclasped the hand on his scalp, and only gave up and let his own arm drop--  _slowly-_ \- when it became apparent to him that no harm was being done.

Seth, meanwhile, was still shaking his head in awe of him.

"Man. You're such a--"

_No! No no no._

Relief was the first feeling that was brought to the forefront when Seth cut himself off, but it was quickly replaced by panic of another kind when he couldn't think of a substitute for the word he was originally going to use.

...because, originally, he was going to say 'nut', and he swore off using terms like that long before he swore off caring.

But, evidently,  _both_  habits were near-impossible to break.

Dean didn't look up. He didn't sense the falter, or the  _unease_ , apparently. How in the world could he not? Seth frantically continued his search for that unintended word and tried not to think about how exactly he was being perceived while he did.

"--weird... dude," he lamely finished. He received a brisk tap on the wrist and glanced to his right, taking in Roman's consequential eye roll at his fumbling.

 _Yeah, that sucked. Why don't_ you  _give it a try and see how easy it is?_


	2. Wed

On Wednesday, their topic of discussion was kind of picked for them. Working out together didn't leave them with so much, so maybe it was a good thing that guy-- that hazy, vague guy who only existed in the dark corner of Seth's tunnel vision-- left his laptop open on a folding chair across from the one Dean was perched on. Unpaused. Playing through a 205 Live match that was just about to fade to a commercial break.

But  _what_ commercial? There were so many possib--

" _After fighting for his life_ _,_ " the gruff-voiced narrator said, effectively halting whatever unrelated, individual thought he was having beforehand," _Roman Reigns returns... to_ _ **fight** \--_ _with his_ _brothers:_ _The Architect, The Lunatic Fringe, The Big Dog -- The Shield reforms One. Last. Time!_ "

Their three faces flashed fast across the screen, zoomed in and oddly saturated. Seth wasn't giving a thought to it; his mind caught on a snag in the middle of the brief Fastlane pitch and refused to leave it. Stuck in a perpetual wince that he only noticed he was in once the commercial was over, and the gym was emptied of most noise.

The chair Dean sat in creaked as he shifted his weight and scuffed his shoe on the floor.

"Roman's got hazel eyes?" he asked, adjusting the towel that was draped over the back of his neck. "I didn't know that. I thought they were green."

"They change, actually," Roman supplied, looking back on his way through the aging door that led into the restrooms. He left them alone after he dropped that concise piece of information, disappearing behind the door he clicked shut.

An amused hum found its way out of Dean as the Cruiserweights resumed onscreen, but it was clear he wasn't thinking about the match he was seeing play out. Seth was waiting for an explosive reaction to a certain something that never came.

"A miscommunication in the editing room, I guess," he said, making Dean turn his head for the first time since his eyes had a lock on the advertisement.

"How d'ya mean? They wouldn't edit Roman's eyes; they're beautiful just the way they are." He pulled an indignant expression after saying it-- lip purse and all.

Seth huffed. Almost chuckled, and compensated for its forced absence with a half-smile. "No, dude. I meant... our 'nicknames'... if you wanna call 'em that. Our titles. Roman's and mine are fine, but they used that- that one... You know." He paused, watching in quiet understanding as the broad smile slipped from Dean's face and became more subdued; didn't quite reach his eyes anymore.

"I mean, I guess if you're in the system... right?" His cheek was supported by his fist, as drawn and rock hard and dangerous as Seth knew it could be.

"So it doesn't piss you off?" Come to think about it, it pissed  _Seth_  off. Maybe he only felt he needed to be that on behalf of Dean's unexpected calm, but he couldn't deny that seeing Dean's famed moniker put up beside Roman's and his own made him look at it a whole lot differently. With less of a willingness to believe it, for one.

Dean flailed a lazy hand at the screen, speaking in that drowsy, leering voice that he always had, regardless of mood: "I don't think I  _am that_. Not personally. But as a matter of fact, I never did. Does now really gotta be any different?"

Maybe it was that aforementioned lack of willingness, or maybe it was something else entirely (Seth was betting more on that), but the indescribably potent, boiling  _rage_ that coursed through him when he heard Dean ask that question couldn't be ignored. Couldn't just be  _pushed down_.

He was on his feet before he had a plan. He was pretty sure he blacked out sometime during the walk he took from one side of the room to the other, but he remembered what happened once he got there very,  _incredibly_  vividly.

Dean's arms shot out on either side of him for balance when Seth kicked the leg of the folding chair, nearly tipping it  _and_  him in the process of turning him around manually. The front legs hit the wood panel floor again, and Dean lowered his hands to the seat part with a shudder of his muscles and a gritting of his teeth, looking up expectantly. A sickeningly neutral frown was in the works.

"I hope to God it does," said Seth, tightly. His glare was fierce as he literally stared  _down_ Ambrose, one hand braced on the chair's back and the other tightening a fist. "I wouldn't be picking my words so carefully if it didn't. I wouldn't  _still_ be so screwed up--  _concerned_  with saying the wrong things if it  _didn't_. There wouldn't have ever been a problem here if it didn't, Dean; what do you  _expect me_  to think?!"

Somewhere in the middle of his pointed rant, he heard the creak of the same old door Roman left through. He heard a gentle, deep-voiced, "Whoa," to follow, and felt a firm hand on his upper arm that pressed until he soundlessly agreed to step away from the chair and get off Dean's case. The uncharacteristically tempered brawler's eyes found the floor several feet away from them once this happened, making contact with a tire stack in the corner and clouding over. Zoning out.

Seth wrenched himself away from Roman and started his walk away from the place where the anger bubbled up, figuring that if he created enough distance from it, it would get small enough to squash.

He didn't talk to Dean for the whole remainder of the day. Dean didn't seek him out  _to_ talk. It worked.


	3. Thu

"I just mean that I understand why you  _wouldn't_ want to, man. You  _or_ Dean. Maybe I screwed this one up."

It was early. The earliest Seth had ever felt a degree of guilt this searing, for one thing. He watched Roman antsily pace-- quite unlike him-- in front of the window. Not achieving the same herky-jerky, back-and-forth at breakneck speed that Dean was known for with  _his_ pacing, but a slower, occasionally-stopping cycle that just kept on going-- more meandering than pacing, really.

"I completely,  _entirely_ want to, all right?" Seth reassured him, finally standing up from his teammate's hotel bed and brushing a hand off his shoulder in passing, making him halt in his tracks. "We've got two days. Two and a half, in fact."

"You sure?"

"Look, we can't...  _cancel_ the match. Dean'd show up at The Q with or without us and find Corbin and his goons in the parking lot, and you  _know_ he'd take on all three of 'em." He was smiling despite himself. It was humorous, but only for being cynical. He was totally convinced that in an alternate universe and time, the very thing he just described  _happened_ , undoubtedly.

Roman didn't show nearly as much optimism on his face. "The Shield isn't  _The Shield_ unless every Hound's on board, Seth. We can't...  _form--_ "

"No no no, I  _swear_ I am, all right?" By this point, Seth actually had to wonder if he  _was_ telling the truth. Maybe he only  _wanted_  what he was saying to be true. "I can't speak for Ambrose, but I'm pretty sure he wants this to work. He knows what he's doing, and he- he showed us what he wants, in as clear of a way as I guess he  _can_." The note of bitterness in his voice made Roman avert his eyes, slowly nodding at the floor. "That's all I can take from this, brother. I  _promise_ , though, that I'll talk to him today. I'll tell him I'm sorry."

That last bit made Roman look up at him, eyes making direct contact with Seth's and  _sharpening_  at a fast rate, effectively startling him.

"He never apologized to you. Why should you...?"

The answer was simple: "I don't need any apology.  _Y_ _ou're_ the one he talked crap about."

"I'm not the one he low blowed at TLC." Roman's shrug was gentle. More tired than anything else. He gave Seth a good-natured shove in passing, moving around the foot of the unmade bed. "I'm not saying I want you to start anything else with him; that contradicts everything we've been talking about. I just wanted us to be cool again, and I still do, but... I hadn't even stopped to think you'd want a little more out of him before we got there, and I'm really not surprised you do."

 _I don't._  Seth could only shake his head, not trusting his voice to take up the right tone.

"Do what you feel is best. Be honest." The solemn nature of Roman's words didn't stop a smile from rebreaking the surface, steeling Seth's nerves all on its own. "It's an ordeal. I know it is. I'm  _with you_ , okay? I'm behind you. I'm behind him, too. I always will be."

The discussion ended on that note, preceding a pleasantry or two more along the lines of, "All right," or, "Will do," and a definitive, "Thank you," that came from both sides. It was wholly meant and left little room for doubt.

Seth went back to his own room. The building stayed quiet all through the dimly lit morning, which he was appreciative of. He didn't venture back out for another two hours.

They were in a different hotel now, and were set to stay from then until Saturday morning. Though he hadn't spoken to him since that one-sided spat in the gym the day before, Seth knew Dean was staying in this place as well; saw him milling behind groups of people in the lobby with his earbuds in the night before. He also just saw him down in the parking lot floors below his room's window heading back inside, which was what made Seth pick up and leave when he did.  _Now_ was as good of a time as any to have that talk with him he promised Roman.

This lobby wasn't as gaudy as the last one they hung out in, but that only meant there was less to look at. The long line to the desk from last night was now gone. The room looked much bigger without it, but it certainly  _felt_  smaller with who was in it.

The back of the living chair he found Ambrose sitting in bowed under the weight of a not-so-light hand. He followed up the call for attention with a small, "Hey," that made the man in question swivel around and nearly lose grip on his lit up phone. The heels of his boots slipped off the edge of the glass table in front of him.

"What's up, my brotha," he said in greet.

Seth swallowed warily and moved his hand farther down the velvety back to prop his whole arm up on it, staring past his teammate's browline at the tile floor. He knew he'd be getting around to answering what could have just as easily passed for a question soon enough.

"Can we just talk about the stuff I said yesterday right off the bat?"

Dean returned his attention to the tabletop, but he wasn't in a hurry to put his feet back up on it. "For sure."

Seth moved farther around the chair and perched a knee on the left rest, taking a deep breath before beginning, with little vigor, "I'm not sure I can put into words what got me so mad."

"Don't think you have to. I've been sending some pretty mixed signals." The cotton in Dean's jacket swished together as he reached for his throat to rub tirelessly at it. The phone eased onto his lap.

"Yeah." Seth hadn't been working up to  _that_  conclusion specifically, but once Dean successfully summed it up in one go, he realized that was exactly the problem he was having. "But, no more mixed than the signals  _I've_ been sending. I act like I want us to be cool one day, and the next I'm knocking over a chair with you in it.  _You_ didn't start a damn thing yesterday-- that was all me. I'm just... still not  _over_..."

The quiet that followed was frustrated. Full, but not with thoughts that were even the least bit happy.

"Mhm," hummed Dean. His brows furrowed as he stared down the glass doors at the entrance like he was mad at them. "I'm sorry for that. I was a rotten person and I was proud of it. I was a different guy last fall."

Seth's mind honed in on the 'I'm sorry' and didn't let go, hyperfocused and analyzing to pieces. Did Dean really just apologize? In his wildest, most unrealistic fantasies, he never thought he would get an apology out of him-- let alone this  _soon_.

"I  _know_ that's an explanation and not an excuse," he wavered out. "I won't fight you on that; I know what it's like to be a rotten person, all right? But the other thing... that...  _cursed_  nickname of yours..."

"--doesn't bother me no more." Dean didn't blink when Seth hopped closer to the arm rest and sat down fully on it, only moving his eyeline higher to look him in the face. "I said I was a different guy then, didn't I?"

"No, man. This goes back farther than last fall. You  _never_  liked being called that. I used it to my advantage back when we were... y'know." Feuding. He didn't feel much like vocalizing the concept. "You only let us know you didn't like it--  _sincerely_ , for real-- not too long after you got back. I was flinging the word around a little too freely."

"I was frustrated," Dean insisted. Seth could tell he was being truthful with him. "I said stupid things."

 _No. No. Not the point._ "It doesn't matter what brought it on, all right?" He pressed a concealing fist to his forehead and shut his eyes.  _How do I make you get it?_

Dean was on a completely different mind track, though: "I don't like... when  _they_ call me that, all right?" He made a flyaway gesture of the hand. If there was a TV nearby, Seth knew for sure he would have pointed at it. "I'm not gonna get mad if you call me Lunatic, Seth. If that's what you think, that's cool. I've rewired some things, all right?"

"But you're  _not_. You're  _not_  a lunatic. Not really."

"Such has been established. I haven't had a straitjacket forcibly put on me in years. Maybe I'm getting better." The grin he puffed out after saying it only made Seth's chest ache more. He locked eyes with his newly reacquired tag partner for all of five seconds before defaulting back to the table edge.

"When we call you that, we're not taking some  _dig_  at your mental health. I mean, that was certainly the way  _I_ treated you, way back... but all  _I_  can do is try to make up for that. If you wanna talk someone who's  _never_ meant it any other way but affectionately, Roman's your guy."

There was a slight pause as Dean registered the words-- and the name. Seth was expecting him to fire back with another insistence that all was well in his perception of the world that relentlessly dubbed him 'crazy' and 'unstable', and was thrown for a loop when all his brother said, in repeat, was, " _Affectionately_ ," in a way that sounded equal parts suspicious and questioning.

"Uh-huh. I promise that's the way I mean it, too. Or, the way I meant it when I didn't think you minded being called that."

Dean still seemed disgruntled by the concept, or at the very least unwilling to accept it. His eyes were biting unkindly into Seth now-- not unlike the way they were on Monday night. Seth chose to ignore them and carry on talking, courage refound now that he had made it this far:

"Yeah, we mean it like... a term of endearment, is the best way I can put it." He let the words hang a moment. They had the liberty to, because Dean was silent. "That's coming from your brothers, who, I can assure you  _endlessly_ , love you, and love the way you can make a whole arena full of people bust up laughing when they had no idea they were about to." He was smiling by the end of it, reinforcing his point. "And maybe that's  _not_ cool that a dude with a sense of humor like yours is deemed crazy for wanting to entertain like that. Maybe not everyone calls you 'crazy' for that same reason. I know why I did."

"Can you elaborate a little more?" asked Dean, surprising Seth-- but not dismaying him.

"Sure. You're a smart, borderline-conniving strategist, man. You're also our goofball third head on a set of four legs, and we wouldn't have you any other way if that's how  _you_ want things to be. If not, I guess we'll just have to get used to the change; we'll have you regardless. As long as you're you. As long as you're  _being_ you."

His eyes wandered again. Coming to grips with all that had just come out of his mouth-- like a broken dam. His face and neck felt hot. The words conveyed volumes, and he figured that out much too late; only discovered what he wanted to say  _as_  it was transitioning from thoughts into spoken sentences.

He looked back down at Dean from his arm rest perch, mildly worried. He saw a split-second glimpse of wide, doelike eyes staring back, but then Dean jerked his head forward again and clenched his jaw.

"That's what you think of me?" he asked, after a tick. He sounded neither impressed nor particularly moved by what he had just heard. A valve of dread opened in Seth's gut as he watched the older throw his phone onto the table and get up from the chair.

"That's... what I think about everything," he replied. He got up as well and crossed his arms in front of him, watching the back of Dean's head before it turned.

Turn, it did. Dean faced him on a snap-around, tense concentration dancing in his eyes. "You think I'm a lunatic?" he pressed, gesturing to himself with an upturned hand.

"I just... said..." Seth was having trouble wrapping his head around how far they just backtracked with a single question. So occupied by his disappointment after having been solidly convinced for a few soaring minutes that they may have actually been  _getting somewhere_ , he didn't notice when Dean drew closer to him. Not until he felt the warmth coming off his jacket. The man was shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking considerably dangerous again.

"A luuuunatic?" Dean reiterated, drawing the word out longer. "A  _screwball_?" He tapped two fingers against his temple, only deepening the worried lines in Seth's face. "Just a... crazed, nutty Hound from Hell? Is that what you think?"

The angered expression on his face never left, and contrasted interestingly with his decision to reach out and land a hard poke into the softest, least toned region of Seth's side, making him flinch away with a confused grin. Doing away with those worried lines faster than any joke could have.

Side pokes were more promising than chest pokes. He knew that for sure.

"If that's the way you wanna be perceived, Dean, I will think that until the end of time," he answered, practically on brother-autopilot mode as his excited brain scrambled to keep up. Brimming with enough happiness to make schooling his features a challenge.

"How dare you? That's perfectly sound and fair. I don't appreciate the gesture." He went in for another poke. He just barely grazed Seth's shirt with it before his hand was deflected.

"Stop. Now."

"'Fraid you're gonna have to make me, Seth. I only respond to appalling acts of violence; call it my love language. There's a glass table right next to us here 'n you're really disappointing me right now." He used his other hand to petulantly tweak at the younger's ribcage, smiling impishly all the while.

Seth twitched after every pinch and finally  **snapped** , plowing into the older with a roar and taking him off his feet.

Fists flew rough and painful into his upper back while Dean's arms were over his shoulders. Seth didn't carry him far as a result of that, and because he had no interest in driving him down onto the hard tile floor. He dumped him back off on the living chair instead; jumped up onto the arm rest himself, and balanced there on his knees while he grabbed hold of the wrist Dean swung at him to chop him off the large piece of furniture.

The brawler's free fist continued to whale on the face of Seth's shoulder. In spite of the nature of the fight, his strikes were real; they hurt terribly, but there was no honest ire behind them. And Seth had been on the receiving end of them enough times to know the difference between the two types.

So caught up in their scuffle on the side of the chair, neither of them noticed right away when it began to tip. Seth twisted Dean's arm over it, and the way the room around him tilted as he was falling backwards was only brought to his attention then.

The chair landed on its side and Dean was spilt from it, falling into a thoroughly disoriented Seth who couldn't reel away fast enough. The scrapper's body covered his own in seconds, one hand commandeering his arm to wrench it behind him at an awkward angle in its socket and the other pressing his face into the cold floor, fingers gripping his beard and tugging unpleasantly.

"The chair wants me to win! You're  _fucked_!" The loud, uncensored bark only made Seth chuckle-- and promptly grunt in pain directly after, because the jean-clad knee digging into his lower ribs didn't make the experience very fun.

"All right, now you really  _are_ layin' it on thick ...  _agh_ , hey, c'mon, don't-" He broke off in a tired sigh when Dean's hand moved off his face and relocated to the tie holding his hair back. It was pulled loose in such a way where nothing was yanked out of root, earnestly surprising him. Long, dark strands fell across his face and neck as Dean got his evident way.

"Ready for the fight of his life now," Ambrose said. Seth was able to make out the grin on his face through a curtain of dark brown locks, pushing off from the floor with his unmanned hand. His brother ran his own hand through the stretchy tie, storing it around his wrist and beneath the cuff of his jacket sleeve.

"I am in  _skinny jeans_. No way."

The teeth in Dean's grin parted like he was going to laugh. Seth wouldn't have minded hearing it, because it certainly hadbeen awhile. His brother got distracted by the sound of shoes slapping the tile speed-walking up to the two of them, and Dean's grin wavered slightly as he looked up at the person Seth couldn't see who was now hovering over them.

"Is there a problem here?" an unfamiliar man's voice asked. It made instant sense.

Dean  _had_ yelled pretty loud, and in almost direct occurrence with the chair toppling over, the situation likely didn't sound all that benevolent to an outside ear (even though, factually, this was the friendliest exchange they had both shared in  _months_ ).

He was still forcing Seth's arm back-- and refusing to relinquish it. Security would be called if they didn't stop. There was only one way this problem could be solved today, unfortunately.

"No," Seth spoke first, and hastily so. Better it came from the guy who looked like he was getting his ass kicked. "We're just-- We do this all the time." He felt inclined to do the true statement one better and add that they did this stuff for a living, but didn't feel like explaining, so he chose to leave it out. "Sorry about the chair. We'll knock it off. Right, brother?"

"I'll try. I'll try real hard." There was still mirth in Dean's voice, much to Seth's relief and pleasure. The older slowly,  _carefully_ receded off of him, like he was convinced Seth was going to spring up and relaunch an attack at the slightest feeling of slack.

Under a different circumstance, in a room more fit for it? Hell yeah, Seth would've.

Instead of doing that, he picked himself up off the floor without a fuss. About to upright the chair in addition, but Dean beat him to it.

"Thank you." The bellhop-- as they were recognizing him to be-- made a beeline for the door behind the desk. Dean watched him until he left fully into the other room, then turned back to Seth, smirking deviously.

"How 'bout this table now, Champ?"

"Sounds more to me like you're try'na kill me before I even  _get_  to Mania, Ambrose." He pulled an unappreciative face when Dean shimmied out of his jacket, slung it over the chair, and then pulled the hair tie off his wrist last thing. He dangled it in front of Seth to make a grab for, which he did.

He pulled it away before Seth could touch it, uttering a concise, teasing, "Nah," before yanking the younger man in by the nape of his neck. He sharply turned him around while he was at it so his back was to him, and transferred his right arm to bar across Seth's chest, forcibly arcing his spine and threatening to muscle him backwards down through the glass surface whether he liked it or not.

Seth had been gearing up for a simple hug, in all honesty.

Maybe they weren't ready for that yet.

"What was that thing you said Monday? ' _Brothers fight_ '?" inquired Dean. He hooked a leg around the back of Seth's knee, bearing down weight the latter was in no position to fight against, even though he tried. "I hope so, 'cause fighting you is my all-time favorite thing to do, full stop."

Seth quit struggling at once. He stopped feeding strength to Dean's pushing with his pushing back, which led to Dean letting up and loosening his hold to avoid  _actually_ putting him through the table.

The words... They were infinitely  _warmer_  than any hug.

They meant a lot. Especially after what Seth had told him in Philly, about what did and always would bond them.

Dean knew. He wouldn't harp on it a second time, but he wouldn't have said what he just did for any  _other_ reason. The sentiment was reciprocated; it always had been. This was his way of letting Seth know that.

"No, you're right," Dean broke into his soft, sappythoughts with more smartassery. "Going to sleep  _is_  a good tactic. I've won a few belts that way."

Seth returned to himself at the comment; remembered why he got tangled up in Dean's bluff setup of a Reverse DDT in the first place. He managed to get his confiscated hair tie out of Dean's hand, and then made his next course of action all about thanking his luck the rough-voiced brawler decided to take his jacket off; he located the man's dormant left arm and pinched hard there, figuring that if a syringe needle counteracting germs could get his tough brother to wince, this would do just as well.

He wasn't incorrect.

Dean shouted in short-lived pain and released him. Seth grinned and took a few leisurely steps away once he did, arms already raised and elbows bent out as his hands gathered up all his hair again. He snapped around on his heel as he remade the neat bun, smiling at Dean, who was still rubbing away at his nipped arm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bellhop stick his head out the door to check on them again, but they were already apart. No sign or trace of anything rascally going on. Nope.

"Not very  _technical_ , but okay," Dean said, pressing the spot one last time before letting go of it. "Jerk."

"You forced my hand." Seth's voice was still amiable. He closed the distance between them somewhat, nearing once again to examine the crook of the older's broad arm. "Did I leave a welt?"

"I'll leave welts on you," Ambrose threatened, with mimimal bite. He flicked Seth on the cheek before moving past him and picking his jacket up from the chair. He slid back into it with a grunt, layering over the mere black tank top he wore-- much to Seth's amusement.

"Well, the more we  _talked_  about fighting... the less I wanted to fight." He waited until Dean's eyes were on him again to continue with, "Thank you for that, man. You know I feel the same way. I mean, I told you myself. And no matter what happens, that'll never change."

"Mm. I hope it does," remarked Dean, as he leaned over the table to grab his phone. "You'll need somebody cool to fight once I'm gone." He uprighted, beaming at the younger with some genuine enthusiasm. "The bouts you 'n Roman get into are siiiick, to be fair. You two keep havin' 'em for as long as they'll let you."

Pure affection for their third flooded Seth. Too much to put into words. Especially now, so worn out from the touchy-feely talk this was turning out to be. He couldn't say he minded.

"Tch. Roman's amazing, man."

Dean's eyebrows shot up in time with his mouth curving down, forming a natural, "can't argue with that" facial expression that was every bit as sincere as Seth's comment. It ran deeper than what was being vocally implied-- by leaps and bounds. They both knew that.

"I was gonna say that reforming The Shield is going to go down a lot smoother now that we've had this talk, but... no. I think it would've been smooth-going whether we did or not." He held a fist aloft, prompting Dean to reach out and bump his knuckles against it. "I was doing it for Roman originally... and maybe, yeah, I got a little taken by the idea on RAW. Enough to bug your ass nonstop about it. Now I think I see why."

Ergo, now he  _knew_  what that missing piece of information was. He finally found it.

"Why what?" Dean asked, retracting his fist and smiling goofily at him. He shielded his forearm with the opposite hand like he was concerned he was going to receive another pinch.

"Why we  _always_  come back around. Why we always find each other again, 'n form Cerberus, whether we're feelin' it or not." He nodded steadily. Dean's eyes softened at the conclusive statement, so ridiculously simple: "No matter how bad things get, we always do."

Forgiveness was a separate occurrence that happened sooner rather than later, but didn't always line up perfectly with the fact either way. It wasn't what opened the starting gate; it only made running the race easier.

They just made things a helluva lot easier with this talk, but had they not, it wouldn't have changed  _the fact_.

It was only when Seth realized that he would grant  _later_ forgiveness with equally as much eagerness as  _sooner_  that he fully-- and gratefully-- understood that.


	4. Fri

As the evening was rolling in on Friday, they were skating out of a nice bar and grill they found-- with a clearer idea of how exactly they were going to bring the fight to Baron, Bobby, and Drew.

Some fans just so happened to enter upon their exiting-- in addition to the ones who had evidently been inside the restaurant with them but didn't realize it was "actually them" until they heard the commotion at the door.

Seth got good luck wishes for WrestleMania, and Roman got expressions of excitement and enthusiasm for his speedy return to the ring.

Dean... Dean got questions. He nearly always got questions. Seth had been apprehensive as to how exactly he was going to deal with them until he noticed he was taking it all in stride-- showing as much pleasure to be seeing them as they were to be seeing him. Smiling and all.

The topic morphed into a talk Dean was leading solely, until someone plucked up the courage to ask him if he really did intend on making amends with his brothers and if the showcase of loyalty in the closing moments of RAW was all some elaborate scheme-- not in so many words.

"You be the judge'a that. I'm wearing the correct identification, aren't I?" With a flourish, Dean whipped out the single, reflective dog tag he had strung around his neck, previously hidden under his shirt. Roman blinked fondly at the sight of it, but a look of thorough understanding was something even  _his_ eyes lacked.

All confusion aside, Dean made some people's days, and they walked away with smiles on their faces. That was, firstly and foremost, what their jobs were all about, and Seth almost forgot how much Dean used to enjoy that aspect of it. Maybe he still did.

By the time they busted out and were moving on down the street, Roman was picking the cold piece of neckwear away from Dean's chest by the beads and analyzing it while they walked. All that indicated this threw Dean off his swagger was the way his pupils continually darted down to observe the inspection and then forward to watch where he was going, many times over. Over the course of a few ungodly  _slow_ seconds, that was.

"What is this, though?" the older asked, tilting it so the sun wasn't glaring off of it. "Yeah, we had dog tags, but not like this. Some kind of... silver..."

"Stainless steel." He seemed glad when Roman let go of it, if only because he picked that moment to scoop it up in his fingers and view it overtop his palm. "I've been wearing it-- on 'n off. Whenever I feel like it."

"What for?" Seth asked, in followup.

"For when I feel like it." There was an edge of irritation in his voice.

Seth nodded dismissively and ran his knuckles gently into Dean's shoulder, content with dropping the subject.

...until he could bring it up to somebody else.

He got just such an opportunity when they made a pit stop back at the hotel half an hour later. He went in with Roman, but they broke off in different directions, not even being located on the same floor. Seth was turning a corner in the hall when he spotted a one Renee Young at the end of it, back turned, getting something out of the vending machine beside the elevator. He stopped short.

He wasn't sure  _who_ he had in mind, but it hadn't been her, even though she made the most amount of sense. It seemed like all she was ever  _doing_  was answering questions about Dean; he was so off-grid, and folks got curious. Seth didn't want to bother her with it-- especially since he knew Dean personally. Knowing him personally didn't offer as much clarity as one would expect, though.

He wound up having no choice in the matter, because as soon as she turned around, her eyes settled on him-- and were instantly lifted by a wide smile.

"Seth! How goes it?"

"Workin' through the snags, to put it one way," he answered. He met her in front of the elevator door as it was sliding open from her pressing the button, giving her a friendly bump on the wrist with the back of his hand. "How've you been?"

"Ah.  _B_ _usy_ ," she responded. She pulled open the bag of pretzels she held, already eating some as she turned to face the opened cab. "Going up?"

"Yep."

He stuck his hand in before the doors closed and pushed them back somewhat, letting her get in first before slipping inside after her. Renee immediately went to the back to lean, and his hands sought purchase on the railing of the wall on her left.

"Taking a little break from packing. We're movin' out early tomorrow." She lifted the bag of pretzels up to him, slow and fluid. "You want some?"

"No, that's o-" He stopped short when he got a look at the hand supporting the bag from the bottom. There were inky black splotches all over it, covering her fingers mostly. Dry, but undoubtedly stained into her skin. "What happened to your hand?" A pan up her wrist and forearm showed much smaller splatters there as well, faint but visible. "I mean, what happened to the whole limb? Are you cursed?"

She paused and transferred the bag over to her left hand before lifting her right arm higher, examining it in the dim elevator light. "Oh, that. The one and  _only_ pen we brought on the road with us exploded. On me, because who else?" She kept the arm elevated to plunge the stained hand back into the bag, taking out two more pretzels and popping them into her mouth. "All I can say is that Dean is the last guy I saw holding it, so derive from that what you will. He grips them way too hard."

Seth chuckled, hardly doubting it. It was then that he came to the realization that that was a good opening in to asking her what he wanted to, and it was then or never. His chin lifted off his chest with a snap when the door slid open on their floor, and he spoke hastily as Renee pushed off from the back wall and started walking out, "Speaking of, there was somethin' I kinda wanted to talk to you about, about..."

"Dean?" She turned with arms partially crossed to avoid crushing the bag, eye contact made and kept with him as he stepped out into the hall with her.

"Yeah. I know you get stuff like that a lot, and 'm sorry for buggin' you, but it's- it'll be really quick. It's just been naggin' at me today. He said weird stuff and wouldn't explain himself."

Her eyes flashed open wide in a look of mild trepidation before replying, faux fearfully, "This might not be something  _I_ even know."

"I figured you would," said Seth. Renee's face sobered at the tone of voice he took on. "It has to do with something he wears. I dunno how long now he's been... Must've been a few weeks before Roman came back, or maybe longer..."

"What happened?" she asked. The concern in her voice was evident, and Seth snapped out of the somber reverie because of it, worried he might have worried  _her_.

"Well, earlier today, we were out talkin' to some people. Dean pulled out that steel dog tag he wears, you know?" Her slow nod was accented by a brow furrow. "He talked about it like it was proof he was Shield through 'n through, but... how exactly does that... equate...? It's blank, for one thing. There's nothin' on it. Dude doesn't even wear it all the time, according to him. He hides it under his shirt when he  _does_ , it seems like."

"It's  _not_  Shield," said Renee, conceding. Seth fervently nodded.

"Yeah. Roman asked him about it. He answered... sorta vaguely. Got even more vague when I pressed the subject-- and also kinda snappy-- so I stopped, obviously. It's not  _that_ important. I don't need to know  _everything_. He's entitled to the stuff he wants to keep from us. I just thought... the way he brought it up and then took it back..."

"Ohhh, okay.  _R_ _eally_ , don't worry, first of all. I know the answer to this one, and it's easy to understand, but... it's less easy to explain, if that makes sense?" She sidled up to the wall beside the elevator shaft and leaned, letting her head fall back after a moment. "I don't think it's anything he doesn't want you or Roman knowing about. It's just that it... doesn't make it any easier for him to talk about. He's not trying to hide anything; he just--"

She left Seth hanging on that last word. Scoffing at the window at the end of the hall, letting in dusky light. "I'm putting words in his mouth. I really don't like doing that."

"I know. I just figured you'd have the best insight. I know it's yours and you're not quoting him word-for-word or anything."

Renee shrugged, but it wasn't a movement conveying she was at a loss. "You know him. I'm not sure it's that easy to just  _tell you_ , outright. Not to him." She paused a moment before continuing, with less conviction in her trained voice, "I gather that makes it sound like he's playing some cruel game with you; that's not what I meant."

He shook his head disagreeably. "That's not what I got out of it."

As a matter of fact, he was thinking he knew  _exactly_ what she meant. The only issue was that it didn't simplify things in the slightest.

"I think..." A tentative smile played at her lips as she gave it more thought. "I think he likes that weight around his neck. I know it's not a heavy weight, but it's present. He's never told me himself, but I'd guess he wears it under his shirt-- against his skin-- because it gets cold when he's  _not_ wearing it. He can't forget it's there that way. I'll let you know if I ever catch him sticking it in the freezer." Mirth returned to her voice at that. Seth smiled and shuffled over to lean against the wall beside her, venting air through his nose as he considered all that she had just said.

"Why do you suppose...?"

"He got it after he broke off ties with you. With Roman." She offered the bag to him again. Seth was unable to help noticing how much quicker--  _snappier_ \-- she did it this time. He caved and took some. "I'll say it again: don't take anything I say here as concrete; I'll tell you when you should. But... if he liked it and wanted to keep something similar to it after he decided to push the two of you out of his life, I can tell you with certainty that it's  _because_  of you and Roman that he did, and still does. All the way."

The uncertain knot in his stomach eased up at the assurance; loosened by the warmth that started from the very bottom and worked its way up into his chest. Into his  _heart_.

He was suddenly very happy he brought this up to her.

"That flimsy old one with Cerberus on it-- he treasures that thing. I don't blame him," Renee continued. She shifted tones and added, with just as much warmth: "For what it's worth, the  _real_  Shield dog tag is at home. Safe. I'm almost certain he'd physically fight anyone who went near it. You  _know_  how much I'm not kidding."

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." That last bit of info told him all that he needed--  _wanted_  to know. The very kind he would have hoped for, if only he knew it was a possibility... which it evidently, happily  _was_.

They didn't cut the conversation short when they ended it, because it was most certainly over. They shared a quick hug and then Renee was off, returning to her and Dean's room only a few doors down.

Seth felt lighter as he resumed the trek to his own room. Got the things he came back to it for once inside-- including a dog tag of his own at the top of a packed duffle bag he never parted with, and spent a good minute looking at before deciding to take it with him and string it around his neck as his own unique form of safekeeping.

One more day to get into the zone-- but the night was still young.

He rode the elevator back downstairs with a contentedly full mind, feeling like a Hound again. He stepped out into the darkening dusk swinging his keys off his finger just as the street lights were coming on, expecting absolute silence or the tail end of another joking conversation between his two brothers.

Seth surveyed the parking lot in front of him and honed in on the brothers in question, who were standing several paces away beside the building exterior directly off the asphalt-- reborn tension he almost didn't recognize between them thick enough to be cut with a knife.

It was the  _way_  they were standing; the maintained distance and the taut muscles. The clenched fists. Talking to one another in low voices that didn't sound "joking" in the least bit. Seth hurried over as fast as he could without running, and picked up on specifics the closer he drew:

"Why would you want this again?" Dean asked, gesturing broadly. "Seth gave you a chance to cop out. He said he put this part of his life behind him. If what I did was too bad to forget about..."

"It didn't matter. It really didn't." Roman backed up a step, bending down slightly to grab hold of the handle on one of the luggage bags propped against his leg. "What we're doing now was and  _is_ more important. I worked through how much it shook me up, but just like Seth, I can't stop thinking about the  _timing_. Did my absence make it easier for you? Was that  _why_ you did it?"

Dean flinched at the words and bit out, harshly, "I was gonna do what I did regardless. What happened with you didn't change anything; it just made carrying shit out harder."

"Then why did you do it?" pressed Roman. "What were you thinking?"

"That I was sick 'n tired of the two'a you, for starters," Dean quipped. Too steamed to see reason in taking the maliciousness out of his voice, or  _something_.

It was Roman's turn to flinch, and he flinched hard.

Seth thought it a good time to step in, and did.

"Hey hey hey." He walked in between them, laying one hand over Dean's chest and pushing him back. The other hovered uselessly in front of Roman, somehow not feeling nearly as comfortable doing the same thing to him. "What's the matter here? We got work in a couple'a hours."

"I know," Roman calmly told him. Any and all trace of the exasperated anger in his voice was gone in a snap. "We  _will_  work."

The sentence could have been perceived at least two different ways. Seth couldn't focus on just one possibility when his head was spinning.

He looked to Dean when he didn't feel him straining and pushing against his open palm. The shorter-haired man had recoiled considerably far, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of them.

"We will," Roman said again, right before seizing the handle of the other bag and lifting both. "It's okay."

He turned and stepped off the curb, walking out into the parking lot toward his car and leaving them there.

"Did you... say somethin' to him?" Seth asked, facing Dean full-on. "I mean, did  _he_  say somethin' to you?"

"I dunno.  _Obviously_ , I guess." Dean's faraway stare-- made to avoid looking Seth in the eye-- settled lower on Seth's face, and then his neck and chest. Zeroing in on the six-year-old licensed dog tag he wore.

"You 'guess'?" Seth repeated, incredulous. "How the hell'd  _that_ start?"

"Don't worry. Don't worry, all right?" Dean said, after having released a ragged breath smarted by the quiet argument and moved in on the younger at an angle. He lifted his eyes just high enough to meet Seth's, speaking soundly: "Not broken; just bent."

The familiar phrasing played through Seth's brain for the rest of the night-- reinforced by the squeeze to his bicep that Dean delivered in passing, maybe. He could have sworn he saw the older man's lower lip quiver just before he turned his back to him and ambled away, obsessively screwing the heel of his palm into his temple as he headed back inside. Seth listened to the suck of the door as it closed shut behind his brother, and the not-so-distant sound of a trunk door slamming.

He waited around a few minutes for Roman to return to the curb, but he never did.

Later on, he received a call from their older brother, who told him he was going to get an early start to Cleveland and possibly arrive there before the sun did.

Seth wanted to talk to him for longer, but all he did in the stead of that was tell him to be safe. He bid him goodnight, but he slept just about as well as a nighttime driver would.


	5. Sat

Seth woke up to the sound of his phone nearly vibrating off the nightstand. 

It was barely dawn, and he wasn't groggy in the slightest. He felt like running.

Call it instinct... intuition...  _sixth sense_... Something wasn't right, and he knew it before he even picked up the phone-- which took longer to do than originally anticipated.

He underestimated just how asleep his arm and hand was from the crap ass position he had been lying in, and tried to prop himself up with it. His hand slipped off the edge of the mattress and the entire upper half of his body went with it, snarling out whatever cuss came to mind as he fell.

He snagged his device on the way down somehow. It was the return of that odd instinct; the uninformed knowledge that the person who was trying to get in touch with him wouldn't be able to call him again if this didn't get through.

"'Lo?" he answered finally, crawling out of the cocoon of blankets that followed him down to the floor with his one working arm; holding the phone up to his ear with the weak one.

" _Seth_ , are you alive?!" Dean's rasping voice blared through the speaker. Seth held it away a moment to rub the buzzing out of his ear before returning to the call.

"Of course I am. What's your damage, Ambrose?"

"Uhhh... bleeding lip, and an unsettling tingling sensation in my--" A loud crashing sound broke into his speech, followed by a puff of breath as Dean fled and/or dodged whatever had happened. Seth jerked to attentiveness at the combination of words and noise.

"Wait, what's going on? Where are you?"

"Downstairs!" croaked Dean. "Need a lil' help-- not much! Hafta hop in the nearest car and head straight to Cleveland! Roman ain't alone there!"

Seth was on his feet the instant he heard "need a lil' help", and only had room to move faster from there on out. He threw on some sweatpants and shoes and was out of his room in under two minutes, sprinting down the hall to the elevator. He rode it down to the ground floor hallway and ran its length, leaping from fumy carpet to scratched-up tile and gunning for the desk, where he saw a towering Drew McIntyre holding Dean's head down atop its marble surface and picking up a glass paperweight to ruthlessly smash over it.

Seth vaulted over the desk with a loud battle cry and drove his knee up into the underside of Drew's chin, causing him to drop the impromptu weapon and disengage from Dean's hair, stumbling back.

He went flying after him, grazing Dean painfully on the way past. He landed in between the two long-quarreling men, sliding without a hope of stopping unless he crashed. He bumped his head and one shoulder against Drew's leg, and was grabbed from behind by the collar of his shirt by Dean and yanked back out of harm's way.

The older pulled him to his feet and gave him a cordial pat to his side through the t-shirt.

"Thanks for comin'," Dean said, over his bloodied lower lip.

"Why wouldn't I?" asked Seth, as what was second nature to do.

"How  _sweet_ ," sneered Drew, after having finally removed his hand from his mouth in a favoring gesture; probably a result of the knee-delivered uppercut making him bite his tongue. His long right leg shot out faster than what should have been physically possible, aiming a massive Big Boot at Seth.

Seth dodged, and it connected with the thin air behind him instead. The Scotsman braced his hands on the desk and doubled over it, heaving a growly breath.

"Fine. Let's just see how many holes in Ambrose's face I can clog up with  _blood_ first."

Dean lunged for him again, raining down punches on his upper back and overtop his head, and barking in time with each strike, "Why. do we  _need_. to stop. THERE?!"

Seth hurried around the desk and ran out into the lounge area while the two fought, thinking and searching fast. He located a wood dining chair in the corner and grabbed it by the back, then returned to the desk with it in tow, hoping McIntyre hadn't already made good on his promise.

Dean was backing Drew up through the door frame of the office-like room behind the desk with ferocious chops to the chest. Seth flanked him in seconds, driving the seat of the unpliable chair into the much taller man's solar plexus and shoving him the rest of the way through.

Dean thought a notch faster still and seized the door knob, pushing it away from him and Seth with frantic quickness until the door closed shut and their foe was sectioned off from them. Almost immediately there was a forceful, full-bodied shove against the wood. Dean didn't let go until Seth placed the chair down and pushed its back under the turning knob, jamming it.

"Nice move." Dean brushed a hand off Seth's shoulder in passing as he returned to the desk. He picked up a tape gun he found there and promptly returned to the scene of the action, blinking in flinch every time the door was pushed and pounded. He covered the knob and chair with tape, every which way he could manage. He then got down on his knees and proceeded to tape the legs of the chair to the floor.

"Excessive," Seth commented.

"Thorough," answered Dean. He got back up and gave the knob one more layer, not breaking the tape off but rather letting the gun hang there and swing loosely from the mess they just created. "We both know this won't hold. We gotta haul ass outta here."

"I do second that, but-" He leaped away from the door in time with Dean when Drew took another infuriated blow at it; they stood in tentative silence watching it to see if their security measures would hold up against the damage. All good for now. "But,  _Dean_... how do you know Roman's in trouble? What clued you in to that?"

"I'll explain on the way."

Seth was pretty,  _basically_  one-hundred percent sure Dean only said that to make it sound like they were in a movie. He felt that way without it somehow.

"Let's mush. C'mon," coaxed Dean, clapping his hands together and backing up for the entrance. The sun was just beginning to brighten the sky through the glass doors behind him.

Seth snorted at the chosen wording and shook his head. He was already moving back toward the hall, in the entirely  _opposite_ direction. "I gotta pack my things first."

"Really?" The disappointed question was mumbled into the palms of Dean's hands as he covered his face. They slid off slowly as the frenetic thumping at the door continued, with no sign of stopping. "We're kinda on the clock here."

"Five minutes-- and I'll be quicker than that. Five minutes won't hurt a three hour drive, Dean. We wouldn't get there quick enough at this rate to stop anything from happening." It was obvious; something Seth  _knew_ Dean knew already. He just needed to be vocally reminded of it, for the betterment of his-- and by extension,  _Seth's-_ \- level head. "We just gotta hope our brother's okay in the meantime. All right?"

Dean nodded tamely and reset his sights on the door. Seth didn't stick around and ran back off to his room. He found the door ajar when he got there, and had to resist a sigh at the trouble his passion got him into sometimes, remembering clearly just  _how_ fast he vacated this safe space to go help Dean. Not something he would have  _fathomed_ doing two weeks ago.

He was true to his word and packed up fast, stuffing strewn things into bags and throwing everything that was in the fridge into a small cooler that was filled with less ice and far more water. Kept himself the exact same, save for a black hoodie to beat back a chilly dawn.

He gathered it all up and managed to carry it with him. Relieved, nonetheless, when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor once again and Dean was standing there with a luggage cart.

"Thanks. I'm not parked far."

"Self-defense," Dean said, indicating to the cart by patting the pole nearest to him. "We're gonna be walking past that door one more time on the way out."

Seth smirked as he was putting his stuff down on the cart bed. His tongue flicked out of his mouth as he uprighted. "Chicken."

He was expecting Dean to zing him back. Playfully push his shoulder, or give him another poke in the side. He got Dean averting his eyes and commencing the pulling of the cart down the hall instead, leaning into the motion with his whole body and almost running over Seth's foot.

They moved through the hotel lobby one last time. Seth soaked in the glimpse he got of the big living chair he and Dean roughhoused on two days before-- wedged between the legs of the dining chair and the desk by Dean, making it so Drew really was trapped good. At least until they were far enough away.

Still, no one was _behind_ the desk-- but as they listened to the sounds of Drew yelling obscenities behind the office door and fruitlessly turning the taped-up knob, they came to the silent conclusion that it was for the best.

They walked the short distance between the front doors and Seth's car, loading up the back with the contents of the fancy hotel cart. Dean returned it to the lobby and implied without directness that he pushed it up against the jammed door and the building collection of varied seating options, further adding on to Drew's plight and Seth's devilish smile.

He assumed the wheel with Seth sleepily sitting in the passenger seat, peeling off out of the parking lot and down the uncrowded road with white in his knuckles.

Seth went just long enough without a task to notice this, but he said nothing to Dean about it. He knew nothing he could say would calm his brother down or get him to lower his hackles, and so they sat in a silence that held uncomfortable tension only because they were worried.

Seth forgot after awhile that Dean even promised to tell him what the deal with Roman was. He thought to bring up something  _else_ when they were about forty minutes into their drive and were entering onto the expressway, and the incurring talk led, unforced, straight into it:

"What were you doin' down in the lobby at five-fifty in the morning, anyway?" he asked, finally tilting his head off the prop his fingers created on the window rest to look at Dean.

"Same reason I know Roman needs us, wherever he is. I got a text from him, sayin'..." He trailed off uneasily, but didn't blink when Seth gave him a coaxing tap to the side that prompted him to continue. "He said he decided to come back; that he never made it to Ohio, 'n he wanted to talk some more. Work things out."

Though Seth had way more questions regarding the likeliness of that given the time of night and the logic he knew Roman did most things by, the only question he could think to ask, with slow care, was, "Do things...  _need_ working out?"

"Huh? We've got a Shield-caliber match tomorrow night, Seth. We  _argued_ ; Roman's mad at me."

"No, I mean... you never told me how that argument  _started_ , but was it even an argument?"

Dean's eyes weren't leaving the road for anything. "You heard what I said. I wasn't lyin'."

"Yeah, I did, unfortunately. But that isn't how you feel now, right? That was how you felt  _then_. Even I know that."

The corner of Dean's mouth lifted in what most resembled a pained smile, kind of there but mostly not.

"Wasn't me saying it enough?"

Seth furrowed his brows at him. He let his jaw rest in the palm of his hand, blinking the lack-of-sleep fatigue out of his weighted brown eyes as he spoke: "Enough for what?"

"To... I dunno." He shrugged his shoulders up past his neck and wrinkled his nose, giving the bumper of the car in front of them a death glare. "You're tired. Sleep awhile. I'll wake you up when we get off the turnpike."

Seth almost argued before he realized said argument would be against sound logic. He slumped a little more against the door and peered out at Dean through eyelashes and warm March sunlight, all too comfortable to be handing him free rein like this. Unchangeably comfortable to shut his eyes and nod off with him nearby. Dean never stopped making him feel that way, and Seth hated it in at least two separate time periods in all his time knowing him, but certainly not now.

He felt arguably  _safer_. He wanted it back for good this time. He didn't  _need it_  nearly as much as he  _loved it_ , with everything in him. It was the last thing he remembered thinking before he fell asleep, and thoughts ceased to be.

 

* * *

 

He didn't wake up to the feeling of Dean's hand shaking him. They were off the turnpike and the radio was still silent; his body jerked him awake to nothing, essentially.

His car was parked and Dean was  _gone_. That was another thing worth noting.

Immediately Seth set about checking the time: 8:55. He got out of the car and looked past the giant truck obstructing his view, spotting a familiar rest area he had recollections of using practically every time he blew through Pennsylvania.

He was under the impression Dean had gone in without him before he heard his brother's voice coming up from behind, talking in a quiet, controlled manner that wasn't entirely unfamiliar:

"Sounds good. Love you."

Seth turned to face him in time to see Dean pocket his phone and give him a bright-eyed, attentive look. The older pointed his right thumb straight over his shoulder in gesture: "Renee's already got a hotel picked; she's farther along. You wanna take on this oasis, compadre?"

Seth nodded with a smile. "Takin' things slow. Attaboy."

Their stay was anything  _but_ slow, and they were in and out, fast, for a reason that still stood. After a brief arm wrestle over the wheel, and an exasperated, "Let me drive my car, Ambrose," they were off and running again by 9:10.

They had more Ohioan ground to traverse than Pennsylvanian, and once they were clear of Dean's native state's welcome sign, the scrapper had long since loosened up and locked his hands behind his head, idly saying, "Maybe three hours was a bit harsh," with a calm, lax lilt to his voice.

It didn't take long for him to return to his fidgeting, though. He was looking down at his phone with knitted eyebrows and shrugging his jacket back and propping his elbow on the window to scratch at his rust-colored beard. Seth could spare a look every now and then because of the straight-shooting nature of their trip.

"Won't be long now. You wanna call him?" He could see Dean already going for his contacts, as if permission to do so was all he needed. "He's gotta let us know where he is."

"Seconded. I kinda just figured the next time we'd be talkin' to each other, it'd be face to face." Dean put the phone to his ear and Seth held off replying, giving him quiet.

A few seconds passed as it rung. Dean didn't speak for any of it, and finally lowered the phone.

"No answer."

_Huh._

Seth never ruled out the possibility that something might have been wrong, even though the thought put his insides in knots.

He couldn't think of any other reason Roman wouldn't have picked up, apart from  _maybe-_ -

 _"I was gonna do what I did regardless,"_ Dean's cold, fending voice from the night before played back in his head, clearing things up all over again.  _"That I was sick 'n tired of the two'a you, for starters."_

 __Oh, right._ _ _Right, right, right._

"You think he- he'd answer if I...?" Seth didn't like the implications of the wonderance, but it was worth asking.

"Yeah. Just try it." The dryness of Dean's voice didn't match up with the paralyzed look of fear and guilt on his face. Seth didn't hesitate and got out his own phone, giving calling Roman himself a try.

It rung a few seconds. He was concerned he would get no answer, either, before a gust of wind and echoey, far off voices emanated from the other side of the call, and Roman's deep voice chimed in, only saying, "Seth," as if to test the waters.

"Yeah. Aw,  _man_ , I'm glad to hear you." Seth's eyes caught on Dean's a moment, but they panned back on the windshield the longer he talked. "Are you okay? What the hell happened? We're drivin' down there by you right now, as fast as we can."

"You 'n... Dean?" asked Roman.

"Yeah, of course. Just tell us where you are."

"Hold on." Seth pictured their eldest brother pinching the bridge of his nose when he said it. He sounded pretty tired himself, if not winded. "How is Dean? Is he okay? I think... Corbin, Lashley-- they planned something. I got jumped."

"Dean is fine. He got help from me. We're wondering about you, man."

"I'm all right. Been lookin' for my phone ever since Corbin tossed it. Rung when Dean called just now and it helped, so thank him for me."

"No problem, brother." He took the phone away from his ear to turn to Dean, whose face changed into an expression of confusion when he was promptly told as such. "We're getting off the turnpike soon. We'll be riding right up next to The Q-"  

"That's where I am," Roman interrupted. "Practically. I'm in this parking deck near there. Not the Gateway one by the ballpark; the one I'm in's called 'Euclid Prospect'."

"I think I know where you're talkin' about. Sweet. Expect us soon, my man. How does forty minutes sound?"

"I don't think those spineless bitches are comin' back. Take all the time you need."

They opted  _not_ to do that, for all they could manage. Seth tried as best as he could to pick up the pace, even though the worry was gone. Dean was tapping the cup holder with his index finger the way he would a mic during a promo, but there was hope in his eyes. Visibly relieved after Seth told him  _why_  a thanks had been in order.

They rode out the rest of the expressway through all of its twists and winds and odd knots, and were finally on level ground again by the time skyscrapers cropped up and driving under a low bridge was their last obstacle.

They were in Cleveland; the fastest lane. The last stop. Bars and gyms and hotels... and more parking garages than Seth had been preparing for. His eyes skimmed over the various establishment facades and markers, and,  _finally_ , crosshairs settled on a street sign that said 'Euclid Ave'. The garage was boxed in between two different hotels and had a few different entrances.

Seth turned, following the fat arrows on the pavement and rolling them under the dark, dim blanket that was the roofed parking lot in question, driving slow. Dean checked the time on his phone and lit up the gloom doing so once Seth paid and they were in.

"No more calls," Seth said, already catching wind of what he was trying to mask doing. "I'm positive he's fine, man. He  _sounded_ fine."

"He said he got jumped. That's something we--  _I_  could've prevented." There was hardly any spite in Dean's voice. Just low, deeply expressed regret. "He just got back; he's still building the momentum back up-- from the  _ground_ , for Christ's sake. I should've been on the floor protecting him."

"He knew full well what he was coming back to," Seth reasoned. It was a good enough argument for Dean not to have a rebuttal. "Corbin said he hoped that if and when Roman came back, it wouldn't be to RAW... but I'll bet that wasn't as much of a wish as it was a  _threat_. We know all about the manpower he's got-- and you know threats don't mean jack shit to Roman."

He turned them down an isle and carefully scanned the scantily lit path in front of his tires. He was considering calling Roman back to ask him what level he was on when, just like that, the headlights illuminated the cement wall directly onward and they saw him. Standing next to an empty space Seth instantly pulled into, smiling eagerly as he did. He cut the gas and left the vehicle, stepping out into the narrow space between his car and the one next to it.

"You sounded  _bushed_ on the phone, man," Roman said, already leaning against the trunk and grinning wornly at him when he turned the corner. Seth replied by wrapping his arms around him, seamlessly and without delay. He was quickly hugged back.

The passenger seat door slammed and Dean appeared on the other side of the car, looking immediately to Roman's disheveled hair; done up in a bun still, but  _messy_. Clearly not intentionally so.

"I'm gonna  _kill_ Corbin," he said, dangerously bassy.

"Dean." Roman broke the hug and turned around fast to face him. Seth's hands were still on his back, gripping his t-shirt with a tentativeness to let go. It was in that perfect combination of flickering ceiling light and far brighter sunlight leaking in through the surrounding opening on the ground level that he could make out the dried blood on Dean's lower lip-- or maybe he saw it before and knew too much about it to care. It was  _Roman's_ first time seeing it, gouge and all. "We'll get you ice for that after you clean it up-- unless you wanna wear it around; intimidation tactic."

"Nah," replied Dean, either consciously  _or_ unconsciously rubbing the crustiness out of his beard with the back of his hand. "I'll clean it again."

"Fair." Roman went back to his lean, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder and squeezing. The brawler averted his eyes. Seth was confused, needless to say.

Roman just carried on talking, lip corners pulling up into a wry smile: "The Shield got bamboozled, boys. Not our proudest day. I mean," he paused to take his phone out of his back pocket, making Dean's head jerk around, "I don't even know what Baron sent you. He got ahold of my phone before it locked and texted you something while I was busy fighting Bobby."

"'S'not important," Dean said. Seth recognized the subtle panic in his voice, but he couldn't place it to a valid reason.

Whether Roman recognized it or not, he didn't listen. He got to the conversation, as indicated by the pure white screen with black text on it. His eyes skimmed the tapped-in words and one of his brows lowered; the other was locked high up, soundlessly inquiring.

"This baited you?" he asked, looking up at Dean-- who, all at once, threw off his hand and stomped away from the trunk, making his brothers flinch back.

"I mean, 'baited' is a pretty strong word," he tightly said, thoroughly incensed. There was plain, evident anger in his eyes now, that wasn't at all feigned to be humorous. "Dean's the sentimental one. He's the one who keeps crawling back. It's weakness. I'm sorry you gotta put up with it, quite frankly."

"It's not that. Not even close." Roman's voice was steady-going for that, but the rest took a bit of a nosedive as he edged off the car trunk. "The  _way_ you were acting yesterday, Dean, and the  _things_ you were saying... It made me think you were going back the other way again."

The fierce scowl on Dean's face mollified at the honesty.

"And, in hindsight, if I  _did_ sincerely think that, I didn't do right by Seth by leaving." He motioned to their youngest without looking at him.

Seth could only grin,  _feebly_ , not entirely sure if the conversation was winding down or just getting started. "Hey, don't sweat it."

Roman's eyes didn't lift high enough to meet Dean's. He conveyed slowly with his always-wide-open arms, and the words came even slower still: "I talked the way I did because I was starting to think you didn't care. It felt like you stopped. I didn't know how to take that. I didn't know why you would, after..."

"No, no." Dean mopped his face and gritted his teeth once his hand was clear of his mouth. "I was  _trying_ to make you think I was goin' back the other way. I made it work somehow, even though I- it- it sucked for me. Fuck. I never said what I think about makes any sense!"

"Why the hell would you do that?" Roman asked, taking worrying cues from the night before; following the same exact pattern.

A sick feeling nagged at Seth's stomach as he stepped aside and listened, anticipating a resolution involving more arguing. He wondered if breaking it up early would improve results this time around.

"'Cause I don't deserve this. You deserve better. Seth  _thrives_ when he's on his own-- and also deserves better. I don't deserve better." He crossed his arms indignantly. He looked like he did on Monday, sans a mic in his hand. Maybe if Elias hadn't attacked him on the stage like he did, Dean would have told them close to the same thing he was telling them now. "Look, I know we've got a match scheduled, and I'mma jerk. It wasn't a planned thing all along; I  _really_  wanted to be forgiven. Once I saw you were willing to argue, I just  _went for it_. It's so backwards. I'm sorry."

He was covering his mouth again. Gripping his cheekbones by fingertips alone and hiding his mouth behind his palms. His eyes were more round and soulful than they had been in a long while-- albeit, Seth and Roman were more accustomed to seeing them framed and shrouded by ringlets of puppyish hair.

The hair was gone, though. Their Dude was still there, and they were so,  _so_  happy to have him.

Roman ventured to touch him again. His hand pushed aside the flap of his wind-chilled jacket and met taut shirt fabric on his shoulder, pressing where it was naturally warmer. "If we can respect each other's reasons for arguing, backwards or not, I don't see what else we'd have to argue about."

"Mhm." Dean closed his eyes when he made the noise of agreement. His hands fell off his mouth, and his eyes opened again. "Yours wasn't backwards."

"I didn't think so. But you didn't think yours was, either." He gently pushed Dean, rocking him back only a little, before letting go. "I respect that."

"Besides, I think it's plainly obvious that  _I'm_ the sentimental one," Seth chimed, laying a hand over his chest. "Probably to a fault."

"Sour then sweet," Dean somehow managed to say, even as he got back his bearings and was walking the intensity off, merely muttering the borderline-teasing words into his hands. He was pacing to and fro, but he was coming off of it. Seth felt relief.

Roman looked incredulous. " _Sour_? No. Just sweet."

"Hey, watch it," Seth warned.

"He's a sweetheart." Roman's smile was adoration in an expression. Seth wanted to groan  _and_  laugh, but didn't feel like entertaining either with his voice.

He simply pinched his chin and shook his head, stone-faced. "Stop. Please stop."

"No matter what kind'a Hound you are, there's a reason you are one." Roman stopped Dean amid his never-ending pacing, throwing a one-armed hug around him and landing his chin on his stiffening shoulder. "If you didn't crawl back, one of us would've. It's  _not_  weakness, you deserve forgiveness, and we  _love you_ , man. That's the most important part."

Seth nodded in agreement to all that he said. Dean stared straight ahead, looking sorta doe-eyed again. He made no move to shrug Roman off this time and passively nodded.

"And it ain't a 'crawl'; it's a take-no-prisoners  _walk_." He let go of Dean, whose lips quirked up into a small smile at his reassurance of such. "Shoulders back and chin up. The Hounds of Justice are ridin' through Cleveland, and we're promising our best not 'cause we got anything to prove--"

"--but because we owe it to each other," Seth finished, solemnly. Roman looked to him with a grin.

"Quit eavesdropping on my thoughts if you know what's good for you, Seth."


	6. Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this story before I knew anything about _The Shield's Final Chapter_ , but I'm still ending it the way I intended from the start. This fic was really meant to be more of an explanation as to why Seth was so comfortable-- not just being around, but _loving_ on Dean by the end of Fastlane and during the 3/11 Raw that followed it, even though he kind of still hated his guts in the 3/4 episode. It just didn't sit right with me, as much as I think I understand why they did it the way they did. So I guess I'm glad I wrote 16,000+ words about it?
> 
> It's a testament to how good (and oftentimes, how perfect) The Shield's storyline always was and is that I felt the need to bridge what I considered to be a gap in it with my writing. I know I'm not the first who has ever felt a need to do so!

"1 ... 2 ...  **3**!  _Ring the bell_!"

Seth breathed a sigh of relief and tore off the ropes, doubling back a few steps. Relief was quickly swapped out for disbelief and astonishment that could have only come about through some thorough reflection that took place in the mere blinking of an eye. He felt lightheaded about it all.

Roman long since pushed off Baron once he knew being on him was no longer imperative, releasing his leg. The ref called it and the bell did indeed ring.

The dizziness made standing without a clutch on the top rope hard. It was a good thing, Seth thought, that Dean picked that moment to swoop in and hug him tighter than he  _ever_  had before, in recent memory or otherwise.

The older's arms were around his torso completely, locking securely over his spine and shaking with the effort, pushing him backwards. Seth returned the embrace and allowed it to pull him out of The Zone, enabling smiling again. He could hone in on things beyond just physically  _feeling_  now that it wasn't the most important sense in existence anymore, but what he started to feel from that moment onward made it difficult to  _want_ to move on from it, if only out of a building curiosity.

There was a  _thrumming_ , reverberating through Dean's head and getting lost somewhere in Seth's sternum. Three syllables in length. Only said once... or possibly twice? He couldn't differentiate between his mumbling and the heavy bass in their song blaring through the speakers and over every square inch of the large room after a while, and gave up trying to decipher it.

He wasn't sure when Roman's arms overlapped his own, or when Dean disengaged from squeezing the life out of his body and transferred half of that ferocious affection onto Roman, distributing it equally and with less urgency once he was certain they weren't going anywhere. Seth pulled their eldest in closer with his left arm once he made sure Dean couldn't get any closer than he already was, wanting them both in his arms even more than he wanted to be caught between either of theirs-- not that they were making that easy for him.

They stayed wrapped up in each other's collective hugs-that-made-up-one-whole-hug for a few seconds longer even though it felt like another hour at least, whispering and muttering and bumping shoulders. Dean stepped to one side of the ring for a well-earned breather-- only after he gave two more hugs to the two of them separately. It gave Roman and Seth a moment to lean on one another exclusively as well, knowing what came next after they broke apart.

"You ready?" Roman asked him, directly into his ear.

"Yeahp." He doubted Roman heard his reply. It didn't matter anyway; the event was about to go off air and they needed to ingrain one last image before it did.

Roman pulled his cheek away from Seth's temple, uttering in his quietest and most comprehensible voice, "Love you. Never question that," before letting up and stepping back.

They met back up with Dean in the center of the ring and closed out the show the way only The Shield could-- and only The Shield  _ever_  would.

 

* * *

 

"Seth."

The low utterance of his name in the more hushed bowels of the men's locker room made Seth snap around on his heel amidst all the distraction and revelry, smiling at Dean, who had seemingly shrunk back and was looking very serious. An odd contrast against everything else, even after Roman made a break for the trainer's room and left them alone.

He screwed the cap on his half-drunk water and set it down. "What's up, brother?"

"I'm sorry," answered Dean, feeling out every last sound and  _savoring_  the two words.  _Why_ was what Seth couldn't make sense of.

"You already said you were sorry, Dean. Apology accepted."

"No, not for that. But I am still sorry for that also." He glanced down at the black tape swathing his fists and proceeded to unravel it, little by little, as Seth stepped closer to him.

"I'm sorry if I made you think that me loving wrestling wasn't the same thing..." He motioned weakly-- uselessly with his right hand, blue eyes downcast and searching the floor space between the toes of their boots. "...didn't  _become_ the same thing... as..."

That speech Seth gave near the end of 2018 came back to him in a bitter flash. How wrong he  _knew_  he was, mere  _hours_  after he gave it-- affected by emotion and anger and frustration with someone who definitely wasn't acting like a brother who loved him, then or ever.

He had made no plans to ask Dean what that three-syllable statement or phrase had been; knew that Dean just  _said things_ in rooms and atmospheres like that, and those things were not meant to ever leave them, by the same merit that the things done in the ring  _stayed there_.

But he didn't need to ask now.

"It's okay," he gently said, not feeling nearly as confident accepting  _this_  apology when he felt too much like the beg for forgiveness was unnecessary, and he wasn't entirely in the right himself.

He decided to take a leaf out of the man standing in front of him's old book and placed a hand behind his head, pulling it in closer to his face and planting a firm kiss in the shorter expanse of hair, trying his best to ignore the blurring and burning in his eyes. He let his scruffy chin rest on the warm spot after that, directing the words that followed out between his brother's ears: "We're cool, Dean."

 

* * *

 

"I love you, too."

Seth had been on his way out of the trainer's room when he heard the words; feeling so overwhelmingly  _accomplished_ and  _proud_ , glazed-over eyes seeing little else besides the floor glaring back bright light from the ceiling. Not only mulling over the events of the night, but the events of the past  _six years_. What a ride.

He found his way back to his family, who were standing next to the exit with coats already on, talking in chill tones.

Seth was only able to guess Dean had just gotten through having the same sort of conversation with Roman that he had taken time out to have with him earlier-- but Roman wasn't content with the unlingering kiss and the briefest of grips when he could throw everything he had into a rib-crushing hug.

"Rooomaaan," Dean complained, feebly. "This is  _gross_. We're gross right now." He dropped his face onto the older's shoulder despite the words, rubbing his chin into the puffy winter coat in a nuzzling, side-to-side motion that only halted operations when he closed his eyes and angled his head farther downwards, pressing unpuckered lips against the nylon and clutching tighter with the arm wrapped under Roman's arm and overtop his shoulder.

Seth couldn't help himself and skulked on up, settling one hand each behind their backs and butting in just as they were breaking apart. Whole lotta hugging this past hour.

Roman's arm was still stretched to rest on Dean's shoulder. He squinted at Seth before looking to Dean again, tipping his head at the former. "You know this guy?"

"He already got his. He should scram; never come back."

"Nice." Seth was about to skate out of frame as quickly as he appeared once the dry, one-worded response escaped him. He didn't make it a step before he was pulled back by not just one brother but both of them.

Roman was silent, reeling him in by the waist with a closed-mouth smile and using his t-shirt for leverage.

Dean's chin landed over Seth's shoulder, growling the threat: "I'mma beat your ass into ugly mush if you take a single not-nice thing I say seriously ever again, are we clear?"

"Nah, I wasn't! I was kidding too!" He was grinning despite the earnest insistence, pulling to get free.

"You better've been," was Dean's unrelenting reply, guttural as always. He cleared off, but Roman had yet to let go. "How 'bout you rough him up a little for me, Big Man?"

"As tempting as that is... I think a firm warning's good enough a scare for now. Next time'll be fatal." Roman aimed a hard pat to his back before unfurling the arm and letting him walk. Seth was initially going to leave them there to go get  _his_  jacket before it occurred to him that there was a chance they wouldn't still be standing there when he got back.

He snapped around, playing it off like he was never going anywhere.

"We did it, boys," he said, making their middle brother's eyes widen and focus after a brief period of glazing over. "We formed Cerberus one last time."

Dean pulled a pained expression at the remark. "'One last time''s such strong phrasing. I hate it, personally."

"It was literally the tagline of the entire event, man. We actually wrestled under the specification that it was going to be the last time."

"If you wanna get all finalizing about it. Felt like any other match to me." He gave a single, decided, unsmiling nod at the door. Seth was too tired to beat back the smart remark and raised his hand dismissively.

"Fine. All sentimentality  _aside_  for once," he left a break, making sure both of them were looking him in the eye before he continued, "we did good work tonight. I dare say the best."

" _That's_  right." Roman held his forearm up, and Seth bumped it with his own. Part of him wished to stand there with them for much,  _much_ longer than they actually wound up. A fleeting handful of seconds passed, though, and Roman was suddenly all about pushing out at the door with his back and panning his eyes over both of them, no small amount of fondness in their gleam. "You boys up for a wordier presentation tomorrow night? I saw them unloading some new Shield shirts from the truck earlier. 'Last match' doesn't hafta mean 'last night  _we_  match'."

Dean nodded with unimpressed pursed lips and a disapproving squint. "Cute. You were saving that one up all night, weren't you?"

"Of course I was."

Seth, on the other hand, couldn't help an avid, excited bounce at the idea. "I'd honestly love that."

"I'm cutting the sleeves off mine," Dean bit out. The sneer was soon betrayed by a lopsided smile when the expression on Roman's face took a turn for the mock-offended.

The older reached out to furiously muss the already-very-mussed hair on Dean's head, visibly hiding any sign that he noticed the way the scrapper of The Shield ducked his head without a thought of moving it out from under the loving pestering, closing his eyes and keeping the smile.

"Settled, then." Roman took his hand away sharply, causing Dean to stumble forward for leaning too deeply into it. "PPG Paints Arena's the next stop. Wanna meet right back up there-- four-ish?"

"That's the place and time," answered Seth. The confirmation was echoed by a more noncommittal, "Uh-hm," sound from Dean, that Roman made sure he heard in its entirety before he left through the exit. It let in a cold draft that reminded Seth of the fact that he still didn't have his coat.

"Hey, I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, all right?" he said to Dean, striking him gently on the shoulder as he backed up. Dean's brows furrowed at the assumed goodbye.

"You'll see me in a few minutes. We're walkin' out together." He loosened his grip on the handle of his suitcase, letting it roll away from him to indicate that he was waiting.

Seth had no intention of sticking around long enough to make him regret it. He ran down the hall to the low murmuring of what little voices were left in the large building, half a satisfied grin on his lips.

"And Seth?" called Dean, making him grind to a physical  _and_  figurative halt. He snuck a glance over his shoulder.

"Yeah?"

Dean took a second to gather the words in a neat order, and didn't sound entirely sure of them all at once: "This was The Shield's last  _sanctioned_  match; that doesn't mean it was our last time forming Cerberus."

Seth gave the carefully-planned words the thought he felt they deserved. He gleaned from them what he was  _pretty sure_  Ambrose meant...

 _Well, obviously. We'll never_  actually  _be done. Not as long as our hearts are still beating._

But he couldn't help but follow the same route of thinking that spurred the speech referencing his brother's  _Chronicle_ back in November-- this time, not for the negative aspects he took away from it, but the positive. How Dean stated that he wrestled every match like it was his last, even if he was already promised another one the following day. How any match  _could_ very well be the last. How partners, no matter how close, weren't always assured to be by your side for the matches to come.

Every night spent wrestling a match was a window of time that couldn't ever be touched by the stuff that came after, and would never happen quite the same way a second time.

Dean said this match felt like any other match to him. He was telling the truth, but it wasn't ill-content or boredom talking. It was the exact opposite of those things, in fact.

So they could wrap things up and say "last time for everything" and acknowledge it not only with their words but in their wrestling-loving  _souls_ , and actually make it the truth as much as they wanted it to be now that all was said and done. Having the freedom to make that decision was a blessing enough, because it wasn't always up to one or all three of them-- with bodies and minds on the line, always.

The Shield  _was_  gone from the roster, but Cerberus would exist  _also_ always, and they didn't need contracts or scheduled bouts to keep  _him_  around. Try telling them they did!

The Shield never asked for permission.

"'Course not, compadre," he called back to Dean, finally. He could just barely make out the sight of the older's mouth twisting into a wide smile. "We might not 'work for each other' anymore, but that guard dog'll never stop working for us!"

He resumed his walk back to the lockers with that, feeling a certain peace he hadn't known before this whole mess started.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an insane amount of fun writing (and tagging) this whole thing. Shield Forgiveness fics are my cup of tea 100%. 
> 
> If you read to the end, I thank you! :D


End file.
